The Colonial Dept.

Ever since its founding in the 1860s, the Manila Observatory had stood watch against the typhoons and hurricanes that threatened to strike the Philippines. But decades later, they were unprepared for a different kind of...

One of the Philippines’ most important archaeological finds, this thin sheet of metal still contains many mysteries. (Listen to S7E12 before listening to this one!)

In the late 1500s, sultans, kings, and outlaws alike all wanted a little slice of Manila. And over two turbulent decades, everyone from faraway Spain to neighboring Brunei asserted their claims over the rajahs and datus...

Born in Calcutta and in love with Philippine fashion, Rafael Daniel Baboom was a true partner in the creation of 19th-century Philippine art. (Listen to S7E11 before listening to this one!)

The nineteenth century—steamships, family names, world trade, foreign firms, liberal ideas. Great tides of change are roiling Manila. In the middle of the chaos, a new art trend captures the imagination of local elites...

Tomas Claudio wasn’t the only Filipino who fought in the trenches of the Great War. Thousands of others also enlisted. (Listen to S7E10 before listening to this one!)

It was the Great War, the War to End All the Wars… and Philippine abaca merchants were raking in sky-high profits. The world’s most powerful navies relied on this plant—which is native to the Philippines—to keep their...

A story of a Philippine bullfight…in the unlikeliest place of alll! (Listen to S7E8 and S7E9 before listening to this one!)

In the second part of our look at the lost sport of Philippine bullfighting, we go deep into its heyday in the 1800s, with social clubs, provincial arenas, and matadors with nicknames like “Fatiguitas.” Then, we look at...

In fiestas in a bygone age, the corrida de toros—the coursing of the bulls—would always be part of the festivities and celebrations in town plazas across the Philippines. Why did this tradition disappear from our...

We know it now as the place where Rizal was executed, but the history of Bagumbayan reaches back centuries! (Listen to S7E7 before listening to this one!)

For centuries, Spain ruled the Philippines from within the closed, claustrophobic walls of Intramuros—the walled city of Manila. But right outside these walls, Manila, too, grew and developed, following the contours of...

A brief look at the team of novelists, poets, painters, cameramen, filmmakers, and other creatives who invaded the Philippines as part of the Propaganda Corps. (Listen to S7E6 before listening to this one!)

Beyond the bullets, the tanks, the planes, the bombs, the Japanese also brought other weapons to bear against the Filipinos: Typewriters. Radio waves. Movie theaters. Here is one story from the frontlines of shisōsen...

From the Panlilios of Pampanga to future gangster Jack Riley, Tom’s Dixie Kitchen pops up in the biographies of some unexpected people. (Listen to S7E5 before listening to this one!)

Governors and gangsters, spies and socialites—it seemed that all of Manila dined out at the two-floor restaurant that rose above the bustle of Plaza Goiti. Inside, waiters handed you menus with more than three hundred...

“Peste general.” “Pestilencial epidemia.” “Epidemia maligna.” In the Philippine archipelago, Spanish chroniclers wrote of deadly epidemics that struck their new possession. (Listen to S7E4 before this one.)

Smallpox was one of the deadliest diseases known to man—and not even the Philippines was immune to its virulent dangers! But how did the dreaded disease arrive on our shores? And what devastating effects did it have...

Crucial to the story of coffee in the Philippines is the industry’s boom years in Lipa during the late 1800s. What really happened then? (Listen to S7E3 before this one.)

Coffee. Tea. Cocoa. The three have a surprisingly rich, complex, and layered history in the Philippines. How did they arrive here, and what effect did they have in the archipelago’s colonial period? Follow us on IG...

This faraway empire shows up in unexpected pages of our history. (Listen to S7E2 before this one.)

As the United States moves to take over Mindanao, both the Americans and the Moros invoke the name of the Ottoman Empire—seat of the Caliph—to support their campaigns. But in 1914, an actual Ottoman emissary arrives in...

In the last decades of Spanish rule in the Philippines, pianos—both foreign and local—provided the tinkling music of the colony’s rising middle class. (Listen to S7E1 before this one.)

It’s the late 1800s, and all across the Pacific seaboard, in places like Singapore and Yokohama, Medan and Selangor, the music of town bands drifts across the esplanades. Many of these groups proudly hail from one port...

Lousy pilots? Fierce storms? Rampaging currents? Some of these galleons never stood a chance. (Listen to S6E13 before this one.)